XLIX.
“Alright, it’s open,” the voice announced. “What are we looking for, exactly?”
“Any quantity of biomass,” another answered. “Should be something like a tumor the size of a grapefruit at this point, but it might be bigger – or might be a smear of blood.”
“Okay, so needle in a haystack then,” grumbled the first before gagging loudly, “Ugh! The smell… Jesus Christ!”
“Get a hold of yourself, Xu,” the second voice uttered scoldingly. “What, did you expect it to smell like roses in here? It’s been sealed since the beginning.”
“Resealed,” Xu corrected. “Come look at the stuff growing on the walls… Some are open… Something got out.”
“It doesn’t matter,” the other dismissed sharply. “Don’t let your curiosity distract you. Look for the biomass. We’ll come back for the Weħǵhekw chrysalis. Don’t get that crap on you either. It’s not cocoonase or anything. It’s toxins and it will destroy your nervous system.”
“Joy…” Xu uttered. “Take the fun out of everything, won’t you, Val?”
Vagari awoke to the resounding voices of another life, ghostly echoes that he couldn’t place. He quickly stumbled to his hands and knees and began dry heaving. While his head swam with the lingering eons of the void, his entire body pulsed with pain, aching horribly with a sense of astasia that made it impossible to stand. It felt like the weight of the world was literally upon his shoulders, crushing him more with every harsh breath he stole between heaves. “Val? Val!” Xu’s voice shouted, shifting in his mind to a hoarse croak, “Vagari! Tehom, what’s happening?!”
“Don’t worry, little one,” boomed the hollow tone that was Tehom’s voice, “he’ll be alright. This is just the price of straying from the path – lingering echoes, nausea, discomfort. They’re not dangerous, as unpleasant as they may seem. It is simply the walls of reality rebuilding themselves again around his mind. The body is always slow to adjust. Fits and spasms aren’t uncommon in the uninitiated.”
“Is that what those are?” Xu’s voice rung again. “Do the open pods hold any worthwhile data? I would love to get a sample… Or is that heresy?”
“No – they’re worthless,” uttered the second voice with a huff. “The same toxin breaks it all down, making any sample unviable. The Mother is greedy with her secrets.”
“How do we transport them then – when we come back?” Xu asked.
“One task at a time, okay?” the other answered. “Wasn’t an arm and a leg enough to quell your curiosity?”
Vagari tried to shake the intrusive voices from his mind. Were they memories? Whose? Not Xu’s, surely. BP’s somehow? Or were they truly echoes from the void? Waves of other realities lapping over his mind as he sat lingering on the shores of the Abzu? Vagari couldn’t tell what was real and what was simply otherworldly whispers from that impossible place. Vagari swayed to and thro on his hands and knees, in and out like the ebb and flow of those cosmic waters – in and out of reality. And, finally, he lost consciousness all together, his thoughts fading back to black.
Vagari awoke back in their chambers at Tehom’s Crimson Keep, that dreadful red spire at the top of the known world. He groaned and pushed himself upright, tossing his chitinous legs over the side of the bed. He felt like he had a hangover, his first since the morning after he admitted his fears of fatherhood to his best friend – or, rather, Val’s best friend, Malcom, over two-hundred years ago. “Ah – fuck…” Vagari cursed, sliding his hands down his face. He stared down at them afterwards – two hideous things, lithe and bony, with fingers twice the length of average with claws to match. “Good,” he thought for the first time – he was still himself. It was a weird feeling, but with those memories, or fragments, fresh in mind, he half expected to wake up as someone else, with his tortured life just a really bad dream.
There came a knock at the door – BP no doubt, judging by how low it was. It was curious that she would knock at all though. “Come in,” Vagari called out, more than willing to see a friendly face, especially the face of his savior. The door opened, sliding into the walls like the pocket doors on a ship, but it wasn’t BP who walked through. No, it was Xu. Vagari’s heart froze and his eyes shot wide with anger, but a moment’s glance and he quickly realized that something was wrong, that it wasn’t the wretched man he knew, but the one from the memories. He was wholly different, a youth in his late twenties, wearing a doctor’s lab coat instead of robes to hide his parasite and deformities. He had a portable terminal pressed up to his face – a face still divided but entirely human. “Val, I don’t understand these specs, at all…” Xu said whilst tapping insistently at the tablet. “I’ve already done the modifications to the device, mind you – you are the boss – but… Where does it go? I just find it strange that the Tevat would need this kind of device to begin with. I even asked our blessed messiah herself and she couldn’t give me an answer. Like, how is that possible? She is the ship! How could she not know why the Gate device is a part of it? Val… are you okay?”
BP shook Vagari’s arm. “Vagari, are you okay?”
“Y-yes…” Vagari sputtered out in reply, the vision collapsing to the weight of reality. “I’m… okay – I think. No – no, I’m feeling much better now.” Vagari quickly leaned in and pulled the squat girl up into his arms. “Thanks to you. You came for me. You called out and I heard you.”
“Of course I did!” exclaimed BP with a squeak, pleasantly surprised by the sudden embrace. “I always will, when you need me to. Though, if I’m being honest, my back is starting to hurt from carrying the whole dang team.”
“I can imagine,” Vagari returned with a chuckle, setting her back down. “We have to be in double digits now, something like 1-12. You win, you’re the hero of our story.”
“Oh, I know, but I’m not counting,” BP said with a bug-eyed wink. A red light flashed above them. “I’m getting to that part, Nabu, sheesh!” Snapped BP. “I swear…” She sighed, lowering her toothy muzzle. “Well, if you’re feeling better and up to it, Tehom wants us to meet up in her study.”
“I’m sure you took creative liberty with the first two parts of that ‘request’,” grumbled Vagari with a reluctant sigh. But all the same, he stood up and gave her a curt nod before saying, “Alright, let’s go meet our patron then.”
“Alright,” BP echoed as she made her way back to the door. She paused in the doorway, looking back over her shoulder at him. “Are you sure you’re okay? You looked… shocked when I came in.”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Vagari answered, doing his best to wear an encouraging smile. BP wasn’t buying it. “I’m fine,” he insisted. “The ordeal was just… Draining,” he said, pushing himself up to follow. “We should hurry, while it’s all fresh in mind. I’d not like to experience that trip twice.” BP nodded unsurely and led them out into the hall.
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The walk to Tehom’s study was done in silence, but not an awkward one. Vagari, walking a few steps behind with BP in the lead, couldn’t help but shift his thoughts back to the child he never had, to the lifelong friendships that could have been hers. Would BP be the friend she was to him, always rescuing her from hopeless situations? Would Soprano be the group’s go-to for all their material needs as Alto had been for him? Would She, that nameless she, be everything he was not? He dreamed she would, in some distant reality where he had never said those fateful words, where he hadn’t helped damn the world; where the GOD of Man had remained a myth, and the fears of the Beyond had stayed the things of science fiction. It was all just a nonsensical fantasy – but it brought him some small spark of happiness to think about.
Before he knew it, they were walking through the crumbling door to Tehom’s study. Snapping out of his dream, Vagari noticed that Tehom’s desk had since been repaired and set right with two inviting chairs before it. They took their seats, leaving one of three vacant. It seemed that Tehom was going to be late for her own meeting. Vagari gave the nearest glowing red pulse an annoyed side-eye. Nabu’s light instantly dimmed as if it were avoiding his pressuring gaze. Five quiet minutes passed before their patron blessed them with an appearance, floating out through a hidden doorway someplace in the back. “Pardon my tardiness,” Tehom ordered. “I was procuring us passage to the New Houston ruins – or, as the rabble are incessant in calling it, ‘The Verdant City’.” she said with a huff of disdain. “We leave in an hour.”
W-what do you mean?” Vagari asked with a nervous twang in his voice. He quickly shared a confused look with BP, but he seemed to be the only one surprised. “Why do we need to go to that wretched place?”
“To accomplish our task, of course,” Tehom said, sliding out her throne with a wave of her hand. She exhaled sharply. “It’s now or never. We must bring down the Tevat.”
“But – you said we had a year!” Vagari exclaimed, feeling a panic rise in his chest. “It’s been, what – a month?! We need more time to prepare! We’re not ready! I’m not ready!”
“Then you should have come to me a hundred years ago,” replied Tehom bluntly, “and not after you set Armageddon back on course. Yes? It has come to my attention that the Living One isn’t keen on giving us the time to mount a defensive. No, the ship has risen and will be heading this way very soon. So, that leaves an offensive.”
“Suicide, you mean!” growled Vagari, throwing his hands into the air. “What are we supposed to do about a legion of Angels, and the ship?! We haven’t even gone over what I learned in the Abzu yet… We have no means to attack! How are we supposed to take on a legion of angels and the Tevat? They’re practically invincible!”
“And yet their bodies litter the land,” put forth Tehom in a matter-of-factly manner. “Their weaponry is advanced, yes, and their armor strong, but they aren’t as impervious to harm as they appear to be. The Mother has been at war with their kind for a very long time. We know how to fight them.”
Vagari guessed that had to be true in some fashion, recalling the ‘dead’ one some ways outside the city, and the countless frozen around the Tevat. At the cost of its own life, somehow the great demon had managed to put an end to the purging titan’s advance before it reached the Megacity, but that was an event Vagari hadn’t been present for. That, coupled with the frozen legion, meant Tehom must have some weapon against them – some defense, or means to damage them that she had neglected to share with the rest of the scorched world. Vagari felt his blood start to boil. Of course she had a defense, and of course she would monopolize it, making her kingdom of slaves the only ‘safe’ place left in the world. “Oh, don’t seethe,” Tehom uttered, a verbal roll of the eye. “It’s nothing so greedy. They may be beyond mankind, but we’ve been at war with them for countless generations. I simply know where to hit and what to hit with.” Tehom clicked her tongue and pointed to Vagari’s side. “The light rifles pack quite the punch, don’t they? Enough to kill a Weħǵhekw even.”
Vagari instinctively touched his side, feeling the scar that remained. That was true, the light weapons had packed quite the punch – unexpected and to devastating effect. Vagari grit his teeth as he remembered that night. He could still feel the warmth of Trois’ body in his arms. His blood boiled a little hotter with the thought. “What about the blood?” Vagari asked, forcing himself to progress in the discussion. “If we meet them near the city and all goes according to plan, what about the blood? Thousands of people rely on the algae marsh for food.”
“It will take time, but we have means to negate the damage of the First Matter, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” Tehom said flatly, “when the world isn’t at stake. Is this the best case scenario? No. But it is the one we now find ourselves in.” Tehom paused with a click of her tongue. “It’s truly such a shame you lack any of your ancestral memories,” she whined. “We simply don’t have enough time or crayons to explain away your lifetime of questions with answers you’ll comprehend.”
Vagari balled his fists, but before he could act on his anger a phantom voice cut him short. “Time?” Xu picked at the word with obvious aggravation. “Why would we be short on time? Thanks to her Grace, we’ve all the time in the world. I mean, look at you, Doctor. Not a day over thirty. So, break out your crayons or I’m going over your head.”
“You don’t understand…” the second voice said – not his voice but a her. “You’re going to keep digging, like a rat, clawing at me until you find some kind of answer, aren’t you?” She snorted. “It’s an admirable trait, Xu… if not a foolish one. You put me at an impasse, you know? One where I either waste precious time explaining the Way of Things to you, or just kill you. Well, tell me then: what do you think happens at the end of all this? At the end of all things? How strong is your faith?”
“Faith?” Xu began, his thoughts apparently turned to distant times and places. “My mother always wanted me to have faith. In her. In our mission. In the Godhead. Have faith, she said, and we’ll persevere. Faith got us here, didn’t it?” the youthful Xu stood where Tehom’s throne had been moments before, staring into Vagari’s eyes as if he were about to say something he wasn’t sure he should. Finally, after a moment’s thought, Xu uttered darkly, “Faith brought us all together for this glorious purpose, right? Faith turned the red planet black. Faith got my father killed when we left him behind to chase it! And, when we finally caught it? Faith took my mother as well. Faith is believing they’re in a better place, in Heaven… But I don’t. It’s sacrilegious, I know, but I don’t.”
Vagari blinked, and once more Tehom loomed before him, her shadowed gaze scanning him up and down inquisitively. “You don’t what?” Tehom asked, her voice a low and gravelly threat. “You don’t have to understand. Just know that I will do my part – as promised. As was our deal. I’m, if anything, a creature of my word.” Vagari watched unblinkingly, shifting his gaze between Tehom and BP with a look of confusion plain on his face. “I’m sorry…” he uttered dreamily, “I’m not doing as well as I thought. I keep… seeing things – memories, I think… They play out before me like I’m watching them through someone else’s eyes.”
“Vagari!” exclaimed BP. “You should have said somethin-…!”
“It will pass,” interrupted Tehom sharply. “You were lost in the Abzu for quite some time, deeper than most can go.”
“How long?” Vagari asked. He only had a vague sense of the time he had spent lost in the void and even it was fading fast. “How long was I lost?”
“Three months…” BP answered. “It took us three months to pull you out.”
“Three months?!” exclaimed Vagari, eyes wide with shock. His head swam with nausea as he looked between the two of them, waiting for the punchline. BP just looked at him worriedly. It was no joke. Vagari sunk into his chair, pondering the situation. “It felt like… an hour, maybe two.”
“It doesn’t matter,” insisted Tehom, rapping at the surface of her desk with the gnarled knuckles of her almost vestigial hand. “The ‘memories’ will pass. The further you go, the longer you dwell, the higher the chance something might stick. They’re extradimensional fragments, whatever you’re seeing. Bits of other places, other times. Ignore them and focus on the now.”
Ignore them? That was easier said than done, Vagari thought, pressing his palms to his eyes. They felt real, and he guessed in some way they really were, just not for him. Vagari nodded curtly and wiped his brow with the back of his hand. “Stay in the now,” he told himself. “Ignore them… Jesus, three months?”
“Good,” Tehom cooed. “Don’t let them hold sway over you. This wouldn’t have happened if you were a more diligent student. Either way, I do suppose this brings us full circle… Tell me, what did you find? Spare no detail. There’s no telling what little answers you may have overlooked.” Vagari looked to BP and she outstretched her hand. He gladly took it in his own, a small bit of comfort that would anchor him in the real as he recalled the horror and majesty of that voidic realm. “Well,” he began, his voice soft and distant, “it began with a great fall…”